Joe Solmonese was interviewed by Metro Weekly on his settling in at HRC. One passage struck me as electorally-pertinent to the LRC's agenda;
"... Over the course of a few years, when we were not as successful as we would like to have been, we realized that the work of electing a woman to the United States Senate has to begin long before the 24-month election cycle. So we went about electing women to the state senate or house, or the mayor's office, or the county commission. We strengthened them by building their political operation so that when a U.S. Senate seat opened up the powers that be in that state said "She's the one who should go.' So when people asked, "Is that a policy shift? Are you helping women get elected to the state legislature instead of the U.S. Senate?" No. It's just another way of getting women elected to the U.S. Senate.
"We have to go out to the states and change the hearts and minds of people and we have to change the seats when the people on the Hill won't listen to us. I don't see one as being mutually exclusive of the other. It's just an added dimension to the federal work that we're doing. One of the things that I've been saying to other groups and to people in these states is that our priorities sometimes will intersect and sometimes won't, but we'll always be very clear with you what our particular goals are. ...."
Substitute "gay Republicans" for "women" in his comment. He's right, getting into the game is important, not just cheering from the sidelines. Getting gay Republicans elected should be a key component of upcoming LCR strategies, not just lobbying and good works....and doing-so at local, county and state-levels.
This ties-back to what I have said in a number of places, the G/L Repubican community should concentrate on local and state elections for 2008 and maybe 2012 as-well to counter-balance the Social Right. Attacking them at the National-level is out of our weight-class, and the 2008 Presidential election will be both devisive within the Party and probably counter-productive. There are no good, electable, gay-friendly GOP contenders that I see; and the likely GOP contenders are both gay-toxic and not up to defeating Sen. Hillarybeast on the General Election of 2008 nor in 2012. Let's both encourage the GOP's farm-team...and develop a few farm-team players ourselves...that have a potential National-office in their future.
